Well fuck me, that caused the shitstorm of all shitstorms…..anyway, let me clarify a bit to keep the flames at bay. I wrote the damn thing in the heat of the moment after reading the article and getting pissed at the fact that the author seemed to imply that snowboarding was dying a slow death solely due to the fact that former riders were staying home and slaving behind a desk instead of pursuing their hobby. Don’t know why I got so fired up about a NY Times article, but I guess it has been one of those days.

I think the thing that gets me is that I have plenty of friends that sit around all day in an office, come home, watch t.v. for hours, and then go to bed. Rinse and repeat, and that is their life. I think the bigger issue here is a commentary on the state of leisure activities in this country in general. Stats continue to show that Americans spend much less time pursuing leisure activities and far more time connected to their offices as compared other workers in the industrialized world, especially with the advent of cellphones, computers, pagers, and the like. I think that is what pisses me off. As a country, I think we are a bit too obsessed with our careers to the detriment of our passions, and yes, by extension, our families. Some of my fondest memories are from when I was a kid and my dad and I went skiing at the local mountains. That is what we need to get back to. I work a five day a week, 40 hour job as do most people, but I also make time for my interests. I don’t have any kids, but if I did, I would be taking them with me to the mountain and teaching them how to ride.

We absolutely need to keep more people on the mountain, but we need return visitors more than anything else, not just people that come to try it for the day and never come back. We especially need young people to keep riding but of course that also requires parents that have enough free time to take them to the mountain. I want new people to learn the sport, and gapers will always be gapers, but I just think this is going to be difficult to do in the bullshit, cutthroat, capitalist-competitive paradigm that we live in where workers aren’t paid their fair share, and time off is more of a luxury than a right. As others have noted, this is especially true in this current piece of shit economy where many workers are held hostage by their jobs.

That is what the article was hinting at, it is where my frustration lies, and that is what I was trying to discuss as well. Sorry if I offended, it certainly wasn’t my intent to piss anybody off.